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When Dwight Villeneuve was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1986, he was told he’d be lucky to live out the decade.

Twenty-five years later, Villeneuve is very much alive, managing his condition with pills, morphine and marijuana.

“I was told I had two to five years to live, and I went into a major depression that sent me right over the deep end,” said Villeneuve. “I did a bit of crime and got thrown into jail on 20 weekends. The time in jail gave me time to look at myself, and to start to look at my life and to clean up my life.”

Villeneuve began five years of therapy, during which he thought, “I’m still living, okay, it’s time to be productive in life.”

He became a manager for a restaurant and stayed active for 10 years, until he started to become very tired. He visited his doctor, who ran some blood tests before delivering the news: “You’ve got AIDS.”

Villeneuve decided to quit his job, but since he was a manager and the owner had just died he wasn’t able to leave until eight months later. “I went into major pancreatitis and tuberculosis, and had a major pain in my feet, which is called peripheral neuropathy,” said Villeneuve.

“You can get it sometimes from the virus and sometimes from the pills, and I knew I was getting it from the pills. I kept telling the doctor, ‘This pill gives me the pain in my feet,’ but he kept me on it and now I have permanent pain.”

Since he was diagnosed with AIDS, doctors have prescribed different drug cocktails for Villeneuve. But to combat the residual pain from the first pills — and the day-to-day problems caused by the disease — Villeneuve has looked elsewhere.

He’s turned to alternative treatments like reiki, a light massage therapy that helps him relax. Villeneuve was getting reiki massages through the B.C. Compassion Club Society, the same organization through which he obtains his marijuana, but has been managing without reiki for about a year now as his condition has stabilized.

The marijuana and morphine help him deal with the pain.

“Cannabis also helps me keep my weight up,” said Villeneuve. “Since getting AIDS I lost 25 to 30 pounds, and so I use cannabis a lot for appetite. It has also allowed me to lessen how much morphine I take.”

Villeneuve is not registered as a medical marijuana user with the federal government, saying he finds the government program too bureaucratic and an invasion of his privacy.

Although morphine effectively reduced his pain, Villeneuve said he wanted to take less of it, given physicians believe it can permanently alter the brain if used regularly.

His own doctor suggested he join the B.C. Compassion Club Society, an organization that helps people with medical problems obtain marijuana. Villeneuve now takes half the amount of morphine he was using before, and said he has found a good balance between morphine and cannabis.

In the past two years, he’s also found a drug cocktail that works for him.

“I have been on 15 different cocktails, many of which I was only on for a few days or weeks before knowing I needed to try something else,” said Villeneuve. “And now I’m on what I consider to be the first cocktail that has actually worked.”

When Villeneuve began his initial treatments for AIDS, he left downtown Vancouver’s West End for Burnaby, before moving later to New Westminster. Seven years ago he moved back to Vancouver and now sits on the board of directors for the Compassion Club (www.compassionclub.org).

“I have taken all of the insanity out of my life and I’m happy I’m now able to give back to society,” said Villeneuve. “When I first walked in I was on my death bed and now I’m healthy and living and I want to give back. I’ve gone through a lot and I believe there is something bigger and better that I can do in this lifetime.”

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Empowered Health airs Thursdays on CJDC at 11 a.m.; CHEK-TV Vancouver and Victoria, CFJC and CKPG at 7 p.m. and CHAT at 7:30 p.m. The show is broadcast Tuesdays on CFTK at 11:30 a.m. You can also view episodes online at vancouversun.com/empoweredhealth

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Vancouver man bucking death sentence now helps others

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